


There I Made My Stand

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5981464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke Skywalker sometimes wishes he had never left Tatooine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There I Made My Stand

**Author's Note:**

> I love Luke Skywalker as much as my poor heart can take. Someone has to take care of him.
> 
> Title taken from ["Hang Me, Oh Hang Me" from 'Inside Llewyn Davis'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWQ6DuW3Brs).

Luke sometimes wished he had never left home. If Tatooine could even be considered his home anymore, after so many years spent away. He wished Obi-Wan had never come to him, he wished he had never trained with Yoda, he wished he had never been involved in anything bigger than moisture farming. Then, he remembered Leia, and Han, and the lives he saved by fighting in the war, and he thinks, maybe, his sacrifices were all worth it. Maybe every mile of suffering was worth the inch of victory he managed to make of it.

Then, he felt Han’s death through the Force. He felt the bond they had break, their connection snapping; what was once golden and strong, a steel bar that stretched, invisible, from him to Han, disappeared in an instant. Luke felt the fracture acutely in his chest before it spread like flames into his limbs, his whole body burning without a lick of fire touching him. He had not seen Han in years; it was a wound now, rather than the ache it had been. He missed him horribly, and losing him tore at his lungs, at his stomach, at his head, leaving raw, gaping holes in the places Han used to occupy.

Luke fell to his knees, hands grabbing at the fabric over his chest before clutching at his head. He pressed his forehead to his thighs and screamed, the first sound he had made in years, his throat weak. His fists clenched in his graying hair, and he fell asleep there an hour later, face wet and throat hoarse and feeling like his skin was a shell and he was scooped out, hollow. All he had left to feel was his connection to Leia, and that was shaky from her own anguish. He reached out tentatively, touched it, and felt Leia’s agony, echoing his own. He shut his eyes and forced it all out, wishing - not for the first time, but stronger than any other time - that he had never learned anything about the Force, about the Jedi, about any of this universe, because all it seemed to bring him was pain.

When Luke woke up the next morning, the one bright sun of Ahch-To shining hard on his face, like his world had not collapsed the night before, he nudged the stones beside him into a memorial. He placed one hand over the formation, nails and skin scraping against rough rock, and tried to internalize everything, like he had been taught. He tried to find the peace within himself, and found himself lacking for it. It was with shaky knees and red-rimmed eyes that he was approached by the first person he had seen in decades, and he joined her in a ship he had not seen in just as long. He left the memorial behind; he left behind the Temple, and the island, and the entire planet of Ahch-To.

Chewbacca did not speak. R2-D2 did not speak. The girl - who introduced herself as Rey, and who seemed comfortable enough to sit in Luke’s imposed silence - did not speak very much, except to ask very basic questions.

“Do you need any water?” she asked, and Luke raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’ve seen enough water,” he answered, his voice scratching against his raw and unused throat. She laughed, once.

“They didn’t tell me you’d crack jokes,” Rey commented, piloting the _Falcon_ with an ease that made Luke’s chest scream in pain.

“Who is ‘they’?” Luke asked. Rey glanced at him, sitting in the copilot seat usually occupied by Chewbacca, before starting to dig through her knapsack. She surrendered a charm to him, and Luke accepted it, turning the worn, carved gem over and over in his hand. He remembered sculpting it himself, a gift for Leia for her wedding, the stone on the back added after Ben’s birth.

“How is she?” Luke inquired softly, feeling the strength of the Force-sensitive stones in his hand warm his palm.

“She’s hurting,” Rey answered, keeping her voice low out of deference to him. Luke closed his fingers over the charms and looked out at the stars in front of them, blurring as they sped through space. “She misses you.”

“I miss her, too,” Luke said, after a long moment of silence. Chewbacca’s hand settled on his shoulder, and Luke reached up to grab it, squeezing hard. The trip back to D’Qar was not very long at all, but Luke spent a great deal of it in his own head, prodding at the bond with his sister, examining the hole left behind by Han’s loss, which nobody had confirmed for him but which he felt like a missing limb, which he did know a thing or two about.

He could feel Leia’s presence as soon as he landed at the Resistance base, their bond stronger than it had been in years. The moment he stepped off the _Falcon_ , he was confronted with her, standing more than a few inches below him. He took one hesitant step forward, than other, than could not stop until he reached her, nearly tripping over his robes as he rushed to her. He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight, burying his face in her hair. He felt her arms wrap around him, squeezing him to her.

“Leia, I’m so sorry,” he whispered into her hair, and she hugged him tighter, and he knew she understood, even if she did not agree. He kissed the top of her head.

“We have to stop Ben,” Leia told him. She stepped back from him, tipping her head back to look at him. She reached out and pinched his neck.

“What was that for?” Luke asked, swatting her hand away. She laid her hand along his cheek.

“That was for leaving your family,” Leia said, and Luke let her pull his face down so she could kiss his forehead. “Never do that again.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and Leia released him. “We’ll stop him, Leia. We will.”

“I don’t know if we can save him,” Leia confessed to him. Luke glanced around at the Resistance base his sister had established; at the dense crowds of people who were all politely pretending not to pay attention; at Rey, who was leaning in, acting like she was not listening; at Chewbacca and R2-D2, who anxiously awaited his response.

“I’ll do everything I can,” Luke promised. The gaping hole in his chest filled, just a little; it would never be the same, not like it had been, and Luke would carry that pain for the rest of his life, the wound that he knew existed because of him. But with his conviction to solve the problem he had caused came the slight easing of the gnawing ache. None of them were the same people they were, but they could bring back the peace they always fought for and dreamed of.

**Author's Note:**

> Luke Skywalker is my everything.
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
